Misguided
by PorcelainDoll304
Summary: Based on my own experience. Duncan is admitted to a mental hospital after a gang-fight that nearly caused him to kill himself. There, he meets an old friend while mourning someone...someone who may still be alive. Duncan/Bridgette, Duncan/Harold
1. Chapter 1

Title: Misguided

Pairing: Bridgette/Duncan, slight Harold/Duncan

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own TDI/TDA

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Duncan opened his blue eyes slowly and immediately wished they were still shut. The room was a spinning blur, fading in and out rapidly.

"Duncan? You're in a hospital. We're going to help you, okay?"

He didn't know if he could speak, but even if he could, wouldn't say 'okay'. Because it wasn't okay, since nobody could truly help him.

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"Do you have any scars, Duncan?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

Duncan pointed all eight of them out. The woman didn't bat an eye, not even when he showed her the really long, fresh one on his chest.

"You may now go shower and change into these." The woman handed him a pair of what looked like doctor's scrubs, but in white. "This is a bottle of shampoo. You may use one forth of a bottle per day. We will check your mouth to make sure you didn't drink it, and it tastes very bad, so please don't do that."

"I won't," Duncan promised, but once he was in the shower, he wanted to, just to spite her. But he knew they'd pump his stomach again if he tried, and that was really just a load of painful shit, so he decided against it.

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"This is your room. You won't have a roommate until your doctor decides that you're stable," the woman explained. "Because you arrived so late, we'll late you sleep in an hour later than the others."

"I don't want a roommate," Duncan insisted, ignoring the rest of her statement. "I've had enough of those, and none of them turned out so great."

"Well, you won't have one for a while," the woman insisted. "Goodnight."

Duncan snarled at the door once she'd closed it – halfway, of course, so they could make sure he didn't try to asphyxiate himself, and then finally crawled into bed.

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It was only an hour before he woke up screaming, a lady taking his vitals, his heart racing and his cheeks wet with tears.

Every nightmare was different, but they always ended the same – blonde hair with dried blood and green eyes closing indefinitely.

And every morning he'd wake up with the stupid tears on his face insisting that they weren't his because he didn't cry.

Not since then had he cried once. The tears weren't his.

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"Duncan, this is Shane. He's going to be your therapist while you're here."

"Whatever," Duncan muttered, lying on the couch. He'd only gotten half an hour of sleep last night and he was exhausted. Black circles rimmed his eyes. He never did very well without sleep.

Shane, on the other hand, looked like he'd gotten at least four good nights of sleep. The guy was practically glowing. Duncan envied him. He hated him.

"I hate you," Duncan said the second the door closed.

"They all do," Shane cheerfully replied. "So tell me, Duncan, what brings you here?"

"An ambulance," Duncan smartly replied. Shane laughed a bit too loud and a bit too long.

"You have a great sense of humor," Shane told him, and Duncan growled. "And a great aptitude for animal sounds. You should be a comedian."

Dear lord. Must he be so chipper? It was far too early. Duncan decided the session wasn't even worth staying awake for and fell asleep on the uncomfortable couch.

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"It's time for lunch," Shane remarked, and Duncan growled at him again as he woke up. He'd slept for a while, he could tell, because the sun was higher in the sky and he felt a bit better.

"I'm starving," Duncan grinned, and even though the food was terrible, he ate three trays full of the glop they'd served and didn't even care that he felt like puking for the rest of the day.

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"Are you ready to talk about why you're here?" Shane queried.

"I'm here because I tried to kill myself," Duncan answered, attempting to imitate Shane's chirpy voice. Shane didn't seem to notice.

"I'm happy you can finally admit that. Do you remember why you tried to kill yourself?"

"No," Duncan lied. "No, that's all blacked out."

"I'm going to put you on some anti-depressants. They should clear your head," Shane announced, writing something down in Duncan's file.

"I don't want my head cleared," Duncan muttered. Shane didn't seem to notice.

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That night, Duncan found that he couldn't sleep, and that he kept seeing _her _standing next to his bed, crying her eyes out. He kept telling her not to cry and by the time she actually stopped, the sun had come up without Duncan noticing.

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"Do you remember yet?" Shane kept asking. He reminded Duncan a lot of a little kid.

"No," Duncan kept answering, the lie tasting stale in his mouth after the fifth time he said it. By the fifteenth, it made him want to vomit.

He was certain that he couldn't keep lying for much longer.

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"You've been cooperating," a woman told him one day as he passed by the desk. "Therefore, we've decided to reward you with a roommate. This is Harold." A skinny, lanky, redheaded boy stood next to her, wearing glasses that clashed horribly even with his white scrubs.

Duncan was so happy to see a familiar face that he completely erased their past by

hugging him.

Harold actually hugged him back.

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"I got busted for drugs," Harold said. The words sounded odd coming from the awkward boy's lips. "Why'd they haul you in?"

"I tried to commit suicide," Duncan answered. They were both sitting on their beds. Duncan hoped that maybe talking to Harold before falling asleep instead of thinking about _her _might make him have fewer nightmares, so he'd woken Harold up and pleaded with him to talk. Now they were sitting cross-legged on their beds, their knees a few inches from touching due to the fact that the beds only had a one-inch space between them, which the orderlies measured every morning.

"Why?" Harold asked.

"I don't…" Duncan finally sighed, feeling his throat go dry in anticipation. "Because my gang found _her _and…"

"Shh…" Harold whispered. Duncan was surprised to see him sitting next to him on the bed, gently rubbing his back. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

The nurse seemed shocked when she came in to check their vitals that next morning to find the two of them sleeping in the same bed, but she was one of the nicer ones so she didn't report them.

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"…they didn't want me dating someone outside of our gang," Duncan explained. "I never meant it to be that way. That's why I tried to hide her. I wanted to protect her from them. I knew they'd hurt her."

"Duncan," Shane said, and Duncan's head shot up because, for once, Shane was being serious. "Duncan, I'm letting you leave. I think we've done all we can for you."

"I have nowhere to go," Duncan sighed. "And I'm not leaving Harold behind."

"Harold was released this morning," Shane sounded surprised that Duncan didn't know. "It turns out that he was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I do believe we've found a good place for you."

"Where?" Duncan queried.

"I think you'll understand when she gets here. Her name is Bridgette. She's been in the hospital for a while but she's never stopped asking about you."

The tears on Duncan's cheeks were finally admitted to be his, because they, for once, weren't sad. They were hopeful.

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A/N: A short memoir about my own time in a psychiatric hospital. My roommate really did end up being someone I knew.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Misguided

Pairing: Bridgette/Duncan, slight Harold/Duncan

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own TDI/TDA

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All morning all Duncan did was sit by the window and stare out it. Shane kept trying to convince him to draw or color or make a design out of beads, but all Duncan wanted to do was sit by the window.

He'd almost forgotten what the wind felt like against bare skin, or the sun radiating onto a black t-shirt. Forgotten how it felt to be able to dye his hair every morning or fall asleep listening to music every night.

And perhaps Shane understood, because after ten minutes of nagging, he actually backed off.

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"Duncan?" Shane called out. "Duncan, your ride is here. Go get packed."

It didn't take long. Duncan had never really un-packed. When he left his room, they finally handed back his clothes and told him that, if his ride agreed, he could change into them in the bathroom before he left, but until he left the hospital, he had to remain in his white scrubs.

Duncan didn't mind. Bridgette and Harold had seen him in worse.

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"It's time for your exit exam," the woman who had done his first exam announced. Duncan followed her without complaining. The exam was fairly easy. They checked to see if the cut on his chest was healing properly – it was. They made sure he hadn't lost or gained too much weight – he hadn't. They did a quick blood test to make sure he'd been taking his pills – he had.

The whole time, though, his heart rate was slightly up because he kept squirming in the chair, dying to see Bridgette again, and even, admittedly, he was on the edge of his seat in hopes to see Harold, too, as Harold he now considered his best friend.

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"Do you have all of your things?" Shane queried. Duncan nodded. He didn't have much to begin with.

"Alright. I'll take you to the waiting room," Shane announced, unlocking the door to what they called 'the unit', which was where people who had tried to commit suicide had to stay. All of the doors here had to be unlocked so nobody escaped. There would really be no point, considering there were guards at all of the doors to the outside. But still, there was safety feature after safety feature here. It was like living in a giant preschool classroom.

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"Duncan!" Bridgette cried, throwing her arms around him.

"You seem so surprised," Harold, who was still sitting on the couch guessing answers to the game show they were showing on the TV, remarked. Bridgette didn't comment, nor did she let go of Duncan, who had to reposition her a bit so he could carry his bag of things. Harold noticed his discomfort and took the bag from him, his fingers lingering on Duncan's a bit longer than they actually needed to. Duncan gave him a sly smile.

"He's free to go," Shane explained to Harold, who was the less hysterical of the two. Harold nodded.

"Great," he grinned, and then turned to his former roommate. "So what do you want to do, Duncan?"

"I could kill for a coffee right about now," Duncan moaned. Bridgette laughed.

"Starbucks it is, then," she grinned.

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"This is probably the best coffee I've ever had," Harold exclaimed, sipping rapidly on his cup of half-and-half.

"He's not much of a coffee drinker," Duncan laughed, downing a cup of black coffee.

"Oh, wow. I totally am," Bridgette grinned, sipping her Mocha Frappicino.

"Does that even register as 'coffee'?" Duncan queried, gesturing at the drink.

"It has coffee in it," Bridgette insisted defensively. Duncan and Harold glanced at each other before bursting out laughing at their friend's indignant expression.

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"Hey Bridgette," Duncan commented as they climbed into the car, "what's your stance on guy-on-guy action?"

"I happen to think it's pretty hot, why?" Bridgette queried. When she heard no answer, she turned around to see Harold straddling Duncan while the two of them made out. After they broke away, Duncan met Bridgette's eyes, which were the size of dinner plates. Duncan was at first afraid that she was going to pull a Courtney and freak out, but all worries were assuaged when she leapt into the backseat with them, stealing one of Duncan's legs from Harold and pressing up against both of them.

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A/N: Yes, I did indeed end an asylum story with a threesome XD.

But it was the only good way to end it without starting drama, which I didn't want. Angst, sure. Drama, no.


End file.
